Cain Velasquez MMA

Hurricane Rubin Carter passes away

Rubin Carter, the legendary boxer who was wrongfully convicted of murder and sent to prison for nineteen years in one of the most blatant racist acts in the United States of America in the 1960s, has died.

The trials and tribulations undergone by Hurricane, as he was known, have been the subject for both songs and films. Born in 1937, Carter was not one of the finest boxers ever to grace the sport but his fame reached stratospheric levels when he was convicted of the murder of three white men back in 1967 and spent 18 years in jail after the trial.

Bob Dylan wrote the song “Hurricane” on the life of the fallen boxer which featured on his album Desire. Hollywood star Denzel Washington recreated the life, the trials and tribulations of Carter in The Hurricane, a critically acclaimed film that was released in 1999 and which earned the Hollywood star an Oscar nomination in the Best Actor category.

Carter was among many men during that era whose life found meaning through boxing. He had a troubled childhood and ended up as a petty thief but boxing was his true calling and he racked up a record of 27-12-1 with 19 wins coming via knockout.

The Hurricane fought at Middleweight and between 1961 and 1966, he was one of the best Middleweights in the country and even defeated Emile Griffith via knockout in 1963.

He had been given just one shot at the world title but lost it and his career never truly took off and he was more or less a regional fighter at best.

Rubin Carter was finally freed from prison in 1985 after years of fighting the wrongful conviction and subsequent sentencing and since then, had been living in Canada and worked as a motivational speaker.